Welp, back to — Do Cameras Matter? No? Yes? Maaay-be?
I have long insisted that they mostly do not, and I think I have the examples to prove it. Your mileage may vary.
Miguel Quiles on the PPA YouTube channel titles a new (30 Nov.) video:
His argument implies, certainly from a professional perspective, that expen$ive professional cameras ultimately do matter, at least insofar as they are helpful tools. Full-frames have it over crop sensors. Professional cameras trump, well, any camera not designated “professional.” The image differences may not be as readily visible on a computer screen as in a print. I don’t print a lot, but I do print, and using my pair of 24-inch Spyder-calibrated monitors, my experience is that I can print any size I wish, even from some pretty itty-bitty sensors, and still get awesome results. I think the key is not so much the camera as the processing.
My counter to Miguel Quiles is that I’ve happily used the awesome helpfulness of every digital I have owned, which is not that many, and almost all compacts of the miniature sensor variety. It was only at the end of 2014 that I moved up to a 1", and I was deliriously happy with it until a Fungusamungus fungi infected and ate its big, beautiful Zeiss f/2.8 zoom. Repair would have cost more than a new camera.
Which forced me to consider — did I want to stay with reliable-but-limiting fixed zooms on compacts* — or was it time to upgrade to a big boy/girl camera, i.e., interchangeable lenses? My compromise was the Sony A6000-series of APS-Cs. I have never looked back. They are quite compact MILCs and, for me, just the ticket.
* “One-inch” sensors (that are no such thing anyway) are considered either the largest of the small sensors or the smallest of the large sensors.
I am one of those people — guys who think cameras are like hammers: any hammer will drive a nail. I may have an unfair advantage with my ~50 years of experience, dating back to the Lower Paleophotographic when all we had was film and stained shirts. Our cameras were all so dirt-simple to work that any practicing photographer could switch off without thinking deeply about it. The controls were all the same. There were no menus. There was no deciding between aperture and shutter priority. There was no way to adjust ISO while shooting — it was set in stone from the first exposure. There was some latitude, what we now call dynamic range, but usually, it was less than a stop either way and beyond that with most films, there could be a loss of IQ — Image Quality.
When I had my butter-and-egg studio, I used a raft of different cameras, from “miniature” 35mm all the way up to 8x10-inch and everything in between. We used different cameras in different formats because, in film, the format made a difference in IQ, especially if you were enlarging significantly.
I lost that studio, pegged my guns, and refused to pick up any camera for a long time.
👈 Until this. (2007.)
If you’ve been reading my stuff, you already know that I was over the moon thrilled with what this tiny thing could do. Its sensor was smaller than a modern cell phone’s. I had no clue how the thing did what it did, but it was awesome. The two shots below were made the first day I had it in a museum with only the ambient light, JPEGs, handheld. Full disclosure, these have been reprocessed in Lightroom. I hardly ever show any picture that has not been post-processed, or re-processed in the case of JPEGs. Below these are their SOOC originals, which are really not terrible but could always use a little help, especially in the shadows.
I enlarged this view as big as it will go to show how remarkably sharp and detailed it is. It was reprocessed in Lightroom just a few days ago using Lightroom CC Classic’s latest tools, including the improved masking. “Select Subject” made it easy to select and blur the background, faux bokeh, to set the sculpture off. One thing that has always bothered me with microsensors is depth of field that goes on forever. It is why the latest phones have computational photography to deliver faux bokeh on demand.
I have been more than thrilled with the performance of my Sony APS-Cs. After my Sony RX10 died of fungus, I did every bit of due diligence to conclude that what I wanted was still compact but versatile. By January 2018, when I dipped my tremulous toe in, my “new” Sony A6000 was already four years obsolete, supplanted (I think) by three newer models, now with more bells and whistles. Because a camera is useless without a lens I bought it with the much-disparaged Sony “Kit” 16–50mm f/3.5–5.6 “Pancake” 3X zoom, plus the “Kit” Sony E 55–210mm f/4.5–6.3, a lens I still love and use. I did replace the 16–50 with a 16–70 (4X) that has greater versatility plus a fixed maximum aperture of f/4.0.
I was so impressed with the A6000 that by August of 2018, I bought an A6300 to have a second body. Both older cameras were superseded this September with a matched pair of A6400s, specifically to get full-time and tracking Eye Autofocus. I leave it engaged all the time. It is am-A-zing!
My cameras are what we used to call “half-frames,” if you cut the full 35mm frame down the middle. From 36x24mm, you get two 24x16mm. Olympus Pen were half-frames in film days, yielding 72 exposures from a 36-exposure roll.
My cameras are classified as “prosumer” cameras, not professional because of all the things pro cameras have that mine lack, such as, well, the full 36x24 frame, dual card slots, pro ruggedness for beating your way out of the riot zone after photographing it, stuff like that. In short, “advanced amateur” cameras don’tcha know (sniff).
Hey, pal! I’ll have you know I was a full-time working professional photographer for most of 30 years. It was a job! Now, as an “advanced amateur,” I am lovin’ it more than I ever did. I’m even better at it. I’ll raise my “miniature” half-frames and see your great bloody full-frames, ya bum.
I contented myself with JPEGs for too many years, but I’m still proud of them, or I wouldn’t show them. When I switched to raw, I was even prouder. I can and do cover anything with my “prosumer” kit. My favorite thing is shooting events, any event, anywhere, any light, and crush it with my A6400s and the astounding accuracy of full-time Eye Autofocus. If there’s an eye visible, it nails it in any light.
It unerringly goes to the nearest eye, even masked people, although it did have some trouble with the masks for some reason. When folks aren’t masked, it never misses, close up or across the room.
As far as digital “helps,” I have been taking full advantage of digital since 2007. I currently have favorite custom user presets I use in all my cameras, crafted to make my job easier and more accurate. I have no guilt about using auto ISO — I call it “floating” — in the case of the above job, I allowed it to float up to 6400, four full stops faster than the 400 I was once standardized on. I use Aperture Priority semi-automation so I can vary the DOF. My cameras can bias for faster shutters as the focal length increases, and yes, I shoot almost everything with “slow” zooms, including in the dark(ish). Mirrorless cameras ignore whether a lens is slow or fast. The finder image is bright regardless. Admittedly, lenses that are no faster than f/4.0 can make getting a buttery bokeh tricky, but it’s easier with the bigger sensors. There are more things affecting bokeh than just the aperture.
I have said — often and obstreperously — that I would happily shoot an all-day wedding with only the kit I have. It would do fine — me, not so much. I’m too old, but just because the cameras lack dual cards slots and other perks of pro models does not mean they can’t turn in a sterling performance. I have enough bodies for backup in-depth, an absolute essential for wedding photography, and I would know since I’ve shot maybe as many as 7,000 of them over the years. Beyond that, I have enough lenses and know-how to do it if I had the stamina. I still remember where to stand.
It ain’t about cameras. It’s about the 12-inches behind any camera. Skills — trump gear.
Thanks for reading! I will siddown and shaddup now.
